Best middle & class Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 3

“The image the Republicans have of themselves needs the image they have of the Democrats to bring it into sharp focus. The Democrats are plainly a disreputable crowd; the Republicans, by contrast, are men of standing and sobriety. Many a middle-class American in many a small town has had to explain painfully why he chose to be a Democrat. No middle-class American need feel uneasy as a Republican. Even when he is a minority--for example, among the heathen on a college campus--he can, like any white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant, warm himself before his little fire of self-esteem.”

“First impressions of mediaeval life are usually coloured by the courtly romances of Malory and his later refiners. Chaucer brings us down to reality, but his people belong to a prosperous middle-class world, on holiday and in holiday mood. Piers Plowman stands alone as a revelation of the ignorance and misery of the lower classes, whose multiplied grievances came to a head in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381.”

“As a child I used to watch clouds, and in them, see faces, castles, animals, dragons, and giants. It was a world of escape--fantasy; something to inject wonder and adventure into the mundane, regulated life of a middle-class boy leading a middle-class life.”

World Children Faces Used Animal Wonder Class Boys Watches Fantasy Middle Adventure Clouds Giants Middle Class Dragons Castles Mundane Middle Class Life

Author:Barry B. Longyear

“By laying the groundwork for a system centered on home ownership rather than the public housing popular in Europe, the New Deal made possible the great postwar housing boom that populated the Sun Belt and boosted millions of Americans into the middle class, where, ironically, they often became Republicans.”

Made Home Deals Class Millions Sun Middle Republican Europe Middle Class Ownership Housing Belts New Deal Groundwork Home Ownership Public Housing

Book:The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

Source: The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

“Most people are middle class. Most people do wish their lives were better than they are. And I think by making my main characters ordinary, average guys, it helps readers identify with their problems. It also helps ground the supernatural events that follow in a recognizable reality and perhaps gives some of my wilder scenarios a little verisimilitude.”

People Thinking Giving Littles Character Helping Problem Reality Guy Wish Class Middle Events Reader Ordinary Average Middle Class Scenarios Main Characters Wilder

Author:Bentley Little

“The Democratic power elite on some level feels delegitimized by its working-class, black and female constituencies. What it wants are the "legitimate" votes of suburban, white, middle-class, affluent males. Even liberal voters and organizations tend on some tacit level to accept the idea that they are not the "real" Americans the Democrats must pursue.”

Want Feels Ideas Real Black White Levels Accepting Class Middle Female Vote Organization Democratic Democrat Males Pursue Middle Class Voters Elites Working Class Affluent Tacit

Author:Ellen Willis

“I quite like the transitions of being an actor, because you get to explore these little pockets of life. So if you're playing a builder you get to know about building, if you're playing a scientist or a physician or something you get to know about physics. And similarly with this world I like exploring their culture, that very sort of upper middle class, addictive... that's part of the reason I love it.”

Ifs Knows World Littles Reason Culture Actors Class Middle This World Building Scientist Physics Middle Class Pockets Transition Physicians Exploring Builder Upper Middle Class

Author:Matt Smith

“To me, women's lib was mainly a white, upper-middle class affair of little use to a reservation Indian woman.”

Littles Use White Class Middle Affair Indian Middle Class Reservations Upper Middle Class

Author:Mary Brave Bird

“The church of Jesus needs to wake up from the exile of passivity and embrace liminality and adventure or continue to remain a religious ghetto for culturally co-opted, fearful, middle-class folk.”

Needs Jesus Church Religious Class Middle Adventure Wake Up Embrace Folks Middle Class Fearful Exile Ghetto Passivity

Book:The Faith of Leap (Shapevine): Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage

Source: The Faith of Leap (Shapevine): Embracing a Theology of Risk, Adventure & Courage

“By default, we have created a "system" of nursing-home care for the aged in which middle-class people pay exorbitant rates to for-profit nursing-home entrepreneurs - and then when private resources are consumed and the patient qualifies as a pauper, the nursing home begins billing Medicaid. This is precisely the antithesis of social citizenship; instead of the poor being accorded the dignity associated with the middle class, equality of treatment is achieved by making the middle class undergo pauperization.”

“One of the most insidious consequences of the present burden of personal income tax is that it strips many middle class families of financial reserves & seems to lend support to campaigns for socialized medicine, socialized housing, socialized food, socialized every thing. The personal income tax has made the individual vastly more dependent on the State & more avid for state hand-outs. It has shifted the balance in America from an individual-centered to a State-centered economic & social system.”

“We need a Republican Party that shows up on the South side of Chicago and shouts at the top of our lungs, 'We are the party of jobs and opportunity! The GOP is the ticket to the middle class.”

Needs Shows Jobs Opportunity Sides Party Class Middle Republican South Middle Class Chicago Tickets Republican Party Lungs Gop

Author:Rand Paul

“I grew up in a conservative household. That was the life of the time in Egypt: a conservative, middle-class household.”

Class Middle Grew Grew Up Conservative Middle Class Household Egypt

Author:Mohamed ElBaradei

“Hillary Clinton wrote an Op-Ed for a paper in Iowa about her plans to help the middle class. Middle-class Americans said, 'Why didn't you just say that in a speech?' and she said, 'Because I charge $200,000 for a speech.'”

Said Helping Class Plans Middle Speech Paper Clinton Middle Class Iowa

Author:Jimmy Fallon

“By May, 1st, 1937, there should not be one single church left within the borders of Soviet Russia, and the idea of God will have been banished from the Soviet Union as a remnant of the Middle Ages, which has been used for the purpose of oppressing the working classes.”

Should May Has Beens Ideas Age Used Purpose Left Church Class Middle Unions Russia Gods Will Borders Soviet Working Class Soviet Union Middle Ages Remnants Soviet Russia

Author:Joseph Stalin

“In the course of the twenty-first century what may be called the "capital wage" could be added to the labor wage and the social wage, so that middle-class Americans - not merely an affluent minority - might derive income from three sources rather than just two.”

Firsts May Two Wisdom Might Three Courses Politics Social Class Economy Middle Century Source Labor Twenties Income Liberalism Minorities Middle Class Affluent

Author:Michael Lind

“We are going through historic times, and my vision is a world, first of all, in which America continues to be that one indispensable nation. Because we're taking care of our own people, because our economy is strong and our middle class is growing, and people feel like hard work is rewarded, and we are continuing to expand opportunity and diversity and tolerance and respect.”

“I went to a middle-class school, but my background is working class. I got the best of both worlds, I saw both classes, so I have a pretty fair idea of how people live and why they do it.”

People World Ideas School Class Saws Middle Fairs Backgrounds Middle Class Working Class Best Of Both Worlds

Book:David Bowie: The Last Interview

Source: David Bowie: The Last Interview

“We have a lot of problems in this country. It's going to put pressure on the budget and we're going to have to make some hard decisions. But the decisions we make are to prioritize the middle class.”

Country Hard Problem Decision Class Middle Pressure Budgets Middle Class Prioritize Decisions We Make Hard Decision

Author:David B. Axelrod

“The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America's middle class. Sure, the rich are doing great. Giant corporations are doing great. Lobbyists are doing great. But we need an economy where everyone else who works hard gets a shot at doing great!”

Needs Years Hard America Class Economy Rich Middle Hard Work Shots Experiments Corporations Giants Middle Class Lobbyists Trickle Down

Author:Elizabeth Warren

“The middle class male thinks he has a monopoly on objectivity.”

Thinking Class Middle Males Middle Class Monopoly Objectivity

Author:Grayson Perry

“While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks.”

Ends Fighting Poor Class Break Struggle Rich Middle Taxes Extraordinary Middle Class Afghanistan Tax Breaks Mega

Author:Warren Buffett

“Nothing good can come from the Federal Reserve. It is the biggest taxer of them all. Diluting the value of the dollar by increasing its supply is a vicious, sinister tax on the poor and middle class.”

Values Poor Class Middle Taxes Dollars Middle Class Reserves Vicious Sinister Federal Reserve

Author:Ron Paul

“I only went along to youth theatre with a friend when I was young to try to make myself a bit more sociable. But the whole thing was quite sore; it really hurt me trying to get into drama school. It was a world I knew nothing about - it was very middle class; all that usual stuff. But I was young, determined, and I just went for it.”

World Trying Whole School Young Stuff Bits Hurt Class Middle Youth Drama Determined Theatre Middle Class Usual Hurt Me Sociable It Really Hurts Youth Theatre

Author:Anne-Marie Duff

“I will never date an actor or a model. My family will never accept her. We are a middle class family, and an actress will never be able to gel with us.”

Able Actors Accepting Class Middle Models My Family Actresses Middle Class Middle Class Family

Author:Suresh Raina

“I never have issues in handling the fame. I was in a boarding school, as I am from a middle-class family. We didn't have a lot of money, so we all learned to respect money and understood its real value.”

Real School Values Class Issues Middle Fame Understood Middle Class Lots Of Money Real Value Middle Class Family

Author:Suresh Raina

“In every conversation I've had - with housewives in Mumbai, with middle-class people, upper-class, in the slums - everyone says there is an underlying consciousness of karma. That people believe in karma - that what you're putting out is going to come back. If I do something to you, the energy of it is going to come back to me in the future.”

People Ifs Believe Energy Consciousness Class Middle Conversation Karma Middle Class Housewife Slums Upper Class Mumbai Come Back To Me

Author:Deepak Chopra

“Whatever people may say, the fastidious formal manner of the upper classes is preferable to the slovenly easygoing behaviour of the common middle class. In moments of crisis, the former know how to act, the latter become uncouth brutes.”

People Knows May Moments Common Class Know How Middle Crisis Former Latter Middle Class Behaviour Formal Brutes Upper Class Fastidious Uncouth

Author:Cesare Pavese

“Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy - so utterly without a sense of humor?”

Class Middle Middle Class Sense Of Humor

Book:Bliss

Source: Bliss

“Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.”

Thinking Mind Different States Black Poor Accepting Class Poverty Struggle Middle Middle Class State Of Mind

Book:Sacred cows-- and other edibles

Source: Sacred cows-- and other edibles

“Anti-smoking sentiment has replaced middle-class morality entirely. The smoker has taken the place of the homosexual. Today you hear people say things about smokers that used to be said about homosexuals - they pollute the environment; you don't want them around your children.”

People Want Children Said Today Used Class Taken Environment Middle Morality Our Children Used To Be Your Children Smoking Middle Class Sentiments Replaced Homosexual Smokers

Author:Fran Lebowitz

“Middle class was defined by having certain values and only a certain amount of money. But this new middle class seems to have absolutely no values and an unlimited amount of money.”

Seems Certain Values Class Middle Amount Defined Middle Class Unlimited

Author:Fran Lebowitz

“In the middle-class United States, a veneer of "alternative lifestyles" disguises the reality that, here as everywhere, women's apparent "choices" whether or not to have children are still dependent on the far from neutral will of male legislators, jurists, a male medical and pharmaceutical profession, well-financed lobbies, including the prelates of the Catholic Church, and the political reality that women do not as yet have self-determination over our bodies and still live mostly in ignorance of our authentic physicality, our possible choices, our eroticism itself.”

“There are more differences between poor people than between middle-class people.”

People Differences Poor Class Middle Middle Class Poor People

Author:Rita Mae Brown

“Congress is a middle-aged, middle-class, white male power structure ... no wonder it's been so totally unresponsive to the needs of this country.”

Needs Country White Wonder Class Middle Structure Males Congress Middle Class Middle Aged Unresponsive

Author:Bella Abzug

“Historians differ on when the consumer culture came to dominate American culture. Some say it was in the twenties, when advertising became a major industry and the middle class bought radios to hear the ads and cars to get to the stores. ... But there is no question that the consumer culture had begun to crowd out all other cultural possibilities by the years following World War II.”

Source: FEAR OF FALLING

“In a process that had begun in the 1980s and suddenly accelerated in the early 2000s ... [t]he peaks of great wealth grew higher, rising up beyond the clouds, while the valleys of poverty sank lower into perpetual shadow. The once broad plateau of the middle class eroded away into a narrow ledge, with the white-knuckled occupants holding on for dear life.”

Process Wealth White Class Poverty Middle Grew Higher Shadow Dear Clouds Rising Middle Class Broads Valleys Perpetual Holding On Rising Up Ledges Dear Life

Book:Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

Source: Going to Extremes: Notes from a Divided Nation

“in our culture, the professional, and largely white, middle class is taken as a social norm - a bland and neutral mainstream - from which every other group or class is ultimately a kind of deviation.”

Kind Culture Social White Class Taken Groups Middle Middle Class Mainstream Norm Social Norms Bland Deviation

Book:FEAR OF FALLING

Source: FEAR OF FALLING

“Sometime in the eighties, Americans had a new set of 'traditional values' installed. ... the poor and the middle class were shaken down, and their loose change funneled blithely upwards to the already overfed.”

Values Poor Class Rich Middle Down And Traditional Middle Class Eighty Rich And Poor Traditional Values Loose Change

Author:Barbara Ehrenreich

“Middle-class-led reform movements, from the Progressive Era to the War on Poverty, have been marred by an elitist distance from the would-be beneficiaries of reform.”

Has Beens War Would Be Class Poverty Middle Movement Distance Reform Eras Middle Class Progressive Elitist Beneficiaries War On Poverty Reform Movements

Book:FEAR OF FALLING

Source: FEAR OF FALLING

“There is a reason why America produced the most vigorous feminist movement in the world: We were one of the only countries in which the middle class (which is wealthy by world standards) customarily employed its own women as domestic servants.”

World Country Reason America Class Middle Movement Standards Feminist Reason Why Servant Middle Class Wealthy Employed Vigorous Feminist Movement

Book:FEAR OF FALLING

Source: FEAR OF FALLING

“To me, the term 'middle-class' connotes a safe, comfortable, middle-of-the road policy. Above all, our language is 'middle-class' in the middle of our road. To drive it to one side or the other or even off the road, is the noblest task of the future.”

Language Sides Term Class Middle Policy Safe Comfortable Tasks Middle Class Middle Of The Road

Author:Christian Morgenstern

“My writing is translated into every Indian language, it's distributed in pamphlets, in little private video things, it's everywhere. So it's a lovely pastime for the middle class to think of itself as the whole nation.”

Thinking Writing Littles Whole Language Nations Class Middle Lovely Video Indian Middle Class Pastime

Author:Arundhati Roy

“I think so much of my early life, even though I grew up White and middle class, I was completely shattered by the horrifically violent atmosphere I grew up in. I am a consequence of violence. That opened a door to many realities that I would not have experienced had I not survived what I did.”

Thinking Reality White Class Violence Doors Middle Grew Grew Up Consequence Violent Atmosphere Middle Class Survived Shattered Early Life Consequences Of Violence

Author:Eve Ensler

“The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons.”

Reality Moving Class Middle Lessons Blue Jazz Middle Class Collectives Halls Concerts Academic Showing Off Starks American Life Continuum Afros Music Lessons

Book:Daggers and javelins: essays, 1974-1979

Source: Daggers and javelins: essays, 1974-1979

“The genius of the Republicans has been how they figured out how to so polarize the middle class that we vote against our own best interests.”

Has Beens Political Politics Interest Party Class Middle Genius Republican Vote Middle Class Political Parties

Author:Patricia Schroeder

“Under this [Bush] Administration, America's middle class has been abandoned -- its dreams denied, its Main Street interests ignored and its mainstream values scorned by a White House that puts privilege first.”

Firsts Has Beens Dream America Values House Interest White Class Streets Middle Privilege Administration Middle Class White House Abandoned Denied Mainstream Ignored Scorned Main Street

Author:John F. Kerry

“Middle class Americans don't ask for special favors, they just want basic fairness, and a President who fights for that ideal.”

Want Fighting Asks President Class Middle Special Ideals Favors Middle Class Fairness

Author:John F. Kerry

“I think it's time we had a President who will provide the only real economic security: good jobs. A President who will provide middle class payroll tax relief to get money in the pockets of workers who will spend it, not more tax giveaways for those at the top to stimulate the economy in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. A President who will index the minimum wage to inflation and raise it from a 30 year low, not increase the tax burden on the middle class and those struggling to join it.”

“My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation that achieved victory in World War II. This was the generation that saved the world from fascism, came home and built the great American middle class, led the way in the civil rights movement, protected our environment, and created great programs like Medicare.”

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Middle Quotes